


Before the Eleventh- Preview

by quiverkaz



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-03
Updated: 2016-04-03
Packaged: 2018-05-30 21:59:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6442522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quiverkaz/pseuds/quiverkaz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Asami tells Opal about her feelings for Korra. This is a shortened version of a long fic I will post later if anyone is interested in this preview. What is in this little ficlet is only a very small amount of a much larger, much more detailed story about Asami and Korra that I have cooking up in my mind, so let me know what ya'll think.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Before the Eleventh- Preview

**Author's Note:**

> This is just a short snippet of a larger story that I want to tell about Asami and Korra. Details and plot holes are probably rampant in this, lol, since it is basically just a sampler fic.  
> update: This fic is based in a semi-AU. Most of the events from the show (villians/spirit world stuff) did not take place. Korra, Asami, etc.. are in college. They're still in the LoK universe, but imagine that it is a much more toned-done, domestic universe ^_^ Please enjoy

Asami panicked as she realized it was the 24th of August. 

Korra was coming home in 18 days. 

Asami sat in her room and thought back to the night when Opal had driven her home after a day at the lake with Bolin. Asami had been quite unlike herself, gloomy and unsociable the entire day, mainly because Korra hadn’t been there with them. After it had gotten dark and the fire they had made on the sand beach had died down, everyone started yawning and decided it was time to go. Bolin had driven up separately, so Asami and Opal drove back into town in Opal’s battered old car. 

“Bolin seems to be doing well,” Asami mentioned, her arms wrapped around her knees she had pulled up on the seat of the car. 

Opal nodded, a smile in her voice. “He’s doing really well with his new job. Nothing too flashy, but he likes that he’s able to help people, you know?”

Asami hummed her response, and put her chin on top of her knees. Her thoughts weren’t really on Bolin; they were on Korra for the hundredth time that day. She couldn’t help but feel a little guilty, sitting in the passenger seat of the car that belonged to the person who was like a sister to Korra. Asami had had a crush on Korra for two years, and she had never told anyone. She was bursting with this information, these feelings. Maybe it was something about the feeling in the air, of driving in the dark with someone she had been talking to all day, thinking of someone who was important to both of them. Maybe it was a dire wish to finally expose what felt like a dangerous secret to someone who would understand. She would have to bring it up to Opal somehow, before they got back into town.

“Too bad Mako and Korra couldn’t come tonight,” Opal said, pulling Asami out of her thoughts. “I haven’t seen either of them in ages.”

Asami nodded. “Same.” She paused for a moment, knowing that what she was about to ask wasn’t her business at all, but she had to know. If anyone knew, it would be Opal.

“ How are Mako and Korra doing? Relationship-wise?”

Asami had found out a few months back about Korra’s years-long crush on Mako. It hadn’t been much of a secret; mostly everyone knew, since Korra made it rather obvious, but Asami was still disheartened by the news. She hadn’t been jealous of Mako or anything. She just wanted to know, after a few months of them not seeing each other, if Korra was over Mako.

Opal sighed. This was obviously a topic she had talked about often. 

“I think Korra’s over Mako, mostly, at this point. She’s accepted that they will probably never end up together, what with Mako leaving for the Academy, and Korra so busy with Avatar things.”

“So Mako hasn’t really...reciprocated any feelings, or…?”

“I think he alluded to it, but never made it clear that he liked Korra, so she got tired of guessing. She’s moving on, which will be good for her.”

Asami hummed approval. “She’s liked him for two years.” She said in a falsely-amused voice.

“Yep.”

“Crazy.”

As they descended from the forested mountains, the lights of Republic City could be seen in the near-distance.

Asami heard Opal shift her head to glance over at her.

“Didn’t…” Opal started, in a cautious tone. “Didn’t you and Korra go out on a date once?”

Asami felt her heart quicken. Of course Opal would have heard about that. She looked out the window, at the dark shadows of trees going by.

“Not exactly,” she said. About nine months back, Korra and Asami had been on vacation from school, and they had just gotten out of the gym after a workout. Korra was going to be heading back to her tribe in the south in a few days. They had been spending a lot of time together since school had started, and they had been getting closer and closer to each other. Almost like best friends, but with the feeling that there was something so much more going on. Asami thought back to how when they went over to Opal’s or out to a restaurant, they would unconsciously find a way to sit next to each other, their knees barely pressed together, the tips of their shoulders brushing. She thought about how she would playfully shove Korra whenever she would make a bad joke, and how their hands would always linger for a fraction of a second longer than necessary on each other when exchanging something. The entirety of their romantic relationship had been so unconscious, so silent that it seemed non-existent: until Korra had brought it up out loud. Korra had asked Asami out in the parking lot of the gym. Asami remembered smiling, bewildered, caught off her guard, but she had been ecstatic. She remembered seeing Korra standing there in front of her, wearing skinny black running sweats and a hoodie, leaning her weight on one foot as she waited hopefully for an answer, the slightest of a smile tugging at the edge of her lips. Asami had known, as soon as she saw Korra’s nervously excited face, that she couldn’t say yes.

“I’ll think about it,” Asami had said.

 

Asami closed her eyes to the memory. Two weeks after that, after Korra had left for the Southern water tribe, she had texted Korra, saying that she couldn’t go out with her. Korra’s response had been short, yet understanding.

“Korra asked me out on a date,” Asami said gloomily to Opal. “Well, I guess we did kind of go on a date, but it wasn’t an official one, it was just us going out to eat. And her paying.”

“Oh, okay.”

Now it was Asami’s turn to cautiously continue: “I did have feelings for Korra for a while though. Back in our senior year.”

“Really?” Opal said, not sounding too surprised. “How long did that last?”

Asami set her feet on the floor of the car, then crossed her legs, wedging her hands between her thighs.

“Up until I started working for my dad.” Asami felt her heart lurch. “And after he passed away.”

The sign saying “WELCOME TO REPUBLIC CITY” flashed passed. At the back of Asami’s mind, she felt an ache reminding her that Korra was thousands of miles away. Opal was silent.  
“And then,” Asami continued, “Korra and I went on that camping trip a few months back, and...ugh,” Asami covered her face with her hands. “I don’t know.”

“Asami..?” Opal started curiously, a smile creeping into her voice.

Shit, Asami thought.

Opal was definitely smiling now.

“Asami, do you still like Korra?”

Asami mumbled something unintelligible into her palms before saying more clearly, “Maybe.” 

She couldn’t help but grin as Opal gasped in surprise and started to snigger.

“No,” Asami said, feebly and pointlessly still trying to keep her secret a secret. She started giggling as Opal aww’d. The weighty gloom she had been feeling all day had suddenly disappeared from her mind. Opal finally knew.

“Ugghhhhhh,” Asami exclaimed in humurous frustration. She covered her face with her hands again and put her head against the glass window pane. She started mumbling more incoherent things, unable to say much more. They were pulling up in Opal’s driveway now.

Opal was half-laughing at Asami’s broken state. “Oh, Asami,” she crowed. “I’ve never seen you like this before.” She reached over and pushed Asami’s knee around. “It’s so cute; You and Korra.”

Asami caught a glimpse of the broad grin Opal wore on her face as they parked within the ring of porchlight from Opal’s house. She matched Opal’s expression, glad to finally have her secret off  
of her chest. 

It had been two years since she had started liking Korra, and the weight of it keeping it from people, of not letting Korra--or anyone--know how she felt had begun to drag at her.

“Wait, so then... long have you liked her?”

“Almost two years,” Asami sighed, trying not to smile.

Opal turned the car off. “Are you going to do anything about it?”

Asami looked over at Opal. “What do you mean? Like, ask her out?”

Opal nodded. Asami shook her head and looked out the passenger side window, her heart racing at the thought. Of course she had daydreamed about asking Korra out only about 30 times, but the thought still intimidated her. 

“I think she’s still got a thing for Mako, and I don’t really want to get in the way of that, you know?” She said, voicing only one of the things holding her back form telling Korra her true feelings.

“Asami, Korra has told me that she’s over Mako, for the most part. She’s tired of waiting around for him to make up his mind, and she’s done. You don’t have to worry about that.”

Asami felt a bit better at that, but there were still so many things sitting at the back of her mind, so many things that could get in the way of her being with Korra.

“Then what if she’s over me? From when she liked me back in the fall? I turned her down, and she’s been...I don’t know...” Asami looked down at her hands, now holding each other, “...distant. Towards me.”

“Asami.” Opal said matter-of-factly. “I’ve known Korra for years. If there’s anything I’ve learned, it’s that once she’s been rejected, she’s gonna shove any and all feelings that she has for someone way deep down inside her where it won’t bother her anymore. She might still like you. And if she doesn’t, I know she doesn’t not like you.”

Asami didn’t say anything

“Are you gonna ask her out?”

“I don’t know.”

“You should, though!” Opal reasoned. “She took the risk of asking you out, right? She had the guts to ask you out on a date, and if anything, you at least need to return the favor and even the score. You’re not gonna let Korra be braver than you, are you?” 

Asami laughed at that. Opal was just a little too good at persuasion.

“You’re not going to let her win, are you?” Opal goaded. 

Asami wrinkled her nose. “Of course not,” she said. Asami hid it well, but she was possibly even more competitive than Korra. If this became a competition--she would have to beat her.

“So then what if I did ask her out?” Asami said. “I ask her out and she says yes, then what? I’m leaving to go to the business school in a year. What if she says yes and we’re really happy and we don’t break up, but then the time comes when I have to leave? I’ve done the whole long-distance thing before, and it’s too painful. As painful as breaking up while happy together.” This was one of the greatest fears Asami had about her potential relationship with Korra. She was going to the Fire Nation School Of Business in August of next year. She didn’t want to start something that would only bring both her and Korra pain.

“So what if it’s painful in the end?” Opal argued. “If you started dating, that means you would have an entire year of happiness with Korra. Wouldn’t those months, no matter how few, be worth it?

Asami let out a puff of air. Her slight giddiness from early was fading into a larger, more prominent anxiety. “Stop making so much sense,” she mumbled.

Opal sounded thrilled at Asami’s defeat. “Ask her out once she gets back from her tour. You have to do it Asami. You can’t torture yourself with your feelings like this.” 

Asami looked over at Opal.

“You’ve liked Korra for two years, right?” Opal said, sensing that Asami was close to breaking. “Aren’t you tired of holding everything in? At least with asking Korra out, you’ll let her know how you feel, and if she doesn’t reciprocate, then maybe you’ll finally be able to get over her and move on. I know it must hurt. After such a long time, there is no way that it doesn’t.”

Asami thought back to every late night she had spent dwelling on the idea of her and Korra together, of every moment she had ever stood near Korra and felt her there without actually touching her, and knowing, somehow, subconsciously, that them, together, was more natural than bears and berries. Her and Korra happy, holding hands, falling asleep together. Asami cleared her throat, struggling to fight back tears. Tears more from the idea of relief than anything else.

Opal reached over the middle console of the car and put her hand on Asami’s knee, her voice soft, yet encouraging. “Ask Korra out, Asami. It won’t be as bad as you think.”

Asami nodded. “Thank you, Opal. I really needed some sense talked into me.”

Opal looked smug in the dim light. “Yes, you did.”

They got out of the car, and said goodbye. As Opal disappeared inside her house, Asami walked over to her car and pulled away from the curb. It was almost midnight, and the streets were empty save for her. She sped home along the quiet roads, feeling lighter than she had in months.

It was the 24th of August. Korra was coming home.


End file.
